The Cyber Asylum
by Elizabeth Burke
Summary: The Doctor has never been very successful with holidays, but when he decides to take Donna to Paris, aliens aren't the only thing that spoil the fun.


**Author's Note: Big thank you to birthday girl Iris for the inspiration.**

* * *

A familiar spiky-haired man, trench coat clad fellow and his familiar ginger flowy scarf donning companion find themselves in front of a familiar Parisian landmark. But one these things is wrong...

Donna grins, pleased as punch at the sight of La Tour Eiffel. "Doctor you did it! Paris. This is gonna be fab. We'll go shopping—well I'll shop you can carry bags, Mr. I-Don't-Have-Any-Need-For-Money—"

"Donna."

She glares in his direction. "What? It's true!" she protests. "Anyway we'll eat pastry and sip fancy coffee at one of those cafés. And can we do that thing where everyone goes bicycling in a group?"

The Doctor tries again, "Donna".

"Oh wait, I think that's only on Sunday, is it Sunday? If not can we stay until Sunday? We can go to a Museum and you can tell stories about the artists until they throw us out for disturbing the other tourists like last time. Might be fun being thrown out of somewhere in France."

"DONNA!" he finally shouts, exasperated.

"Doctor there's no need to shout. I'm standing right here."

He scrubs a hand down the length of his face and grabs her arm. "Donna, this isn't Paris-"

"Of course it's Paris. I know you're not from around here, but really, Eiffel Tower right there."

-this isn't _your _Paris," corrects the Doctor continuing undeterred. "It's alternate Paris. This time I got the date and place right, I just managed to hit the wrong universe." A quick glance at Donna proves she is looking at him as though he'd just declared great affection for her mother, and he sighs. "Oh, just, look up!"

Donna does. Overhead, a legion of Cybus zeppelins float around.

"Those overgrown blimps up there mean this is the universe where Cybermen run wild. I'm afraid it won't be a very pleasant holiday as long as we're here."

Donna frowns, spinning around to take a look at the view of alternate Paris from where they stood before turning back to face the Doctor. "Why couldn't you just lie? You lied about the library. You could have just said it was Paris and I could have had a nice time."

He shrugs. "You told me not to do that anymore."

"Since when do you listen to me?" she huffs.

"I always listen to you," he replies quietly. She slips her hand in his.

She steps forward, pulling open the doors to reveal the pitch black interior of a dead TARDIS. Still facing the Doctor, she says, "well, let's get out of here and find the real one then."

As she turns around he answers her, frowning into the black void. "That's the other problem. Hopping universes harms the old girl. I installed a sort of generator so it's not as bad as it looks, she'll be up and running by this time tomorrow, and without shaving off any of my years this time," he adds to himself in a mutter, "but until then we're stuck here."

Donna shuts the door. "So what now?"

* * *

A short time later, the Doctor and Donna walk down a boulevard, the Doctor on high alert despite the apparently pleasant atmosphere. Pleasant minus the heated argument they're having, at any rate.

"If not for you, or for her, then you could do it for me? I want to meet her," argues Donna, now on her fourth tact for why they should see Rose upon discovering that it is her universe. "You're like those people who fly in on holiday and don't stop into to see old friends. It's wrong, Doctor. She'd want to see you if she knew."

So far the Doctor had been sticking to practical arguments. "How are we going to get to Norway, or London, or wherever she is now? Hitch-hike all over until we get it right? Just abandon the TARDIS while she's recharging and hope we aren't upgraded, deleted, or otherwise killed while we're having an outing?" Truthfully he's touched. Even after explaining the mechanics of the parallel world Donna hasn't shown much interest in looking up her alternate family or doing anything else that might otherwise cause a problem. She'd just wanted to support him in doing the one and only thing that could tempt him away from his original universe: reunite him with Rose.

Donna flips the scarf around her neck again, irritated at the way it caught the wind as much as she is at the Doctor. Any idiot could tell he'd have given his right arm to go and get Rose Tyler back when they'd met, and now here he was with a chance to see her again and he's throwing it away. She'd heard all his warnings about forbidden fruit and still she wasn't buying it. It is something more than that, even someone as dim as Donna knew that much. She's hurt, both because he could ignore someone he claimed to love so easily, and because there are still things he couldn't share with her. He is standing centimetres from where she is and even with all the angry words to fill the space between them, she has never felt further apart. "Fine, Doctor. You go on and on about Rose this, Rose that, but she's practically thrown at your feet and finding an airport and leaving your precious box is too much work to go through for the love of your life. I'm sure Rose would be over the moon to know how much you care, guess it's good she'll never find out."

For a moment the Doctor is left standing still as Donna's words slap him in the face and she speeds up, the world shrinking to just him and her and the sound of her shoes clomping against the cobblestones. He catches up to her in a couple of long strides, and turns Donna to face him. "I can't see her because I care too much. Because if I show up there and she's moved on then I'll be all the worse for having not. And if I go there and she hasn't, then I'll spend everyday thinking about how much pain I've caused her."

Donna opens her mouth and he shakes his head to stop her. I know what you're going to say. 'Oh Doctor you wouldn't leave her there. We'd bring her back, take her with us,' he intones in a poor imitation of Donna's voice. "But what then Donna? Because at some point, some way I'm forced to say goodbye to everyone. I know I couldn't leave her again, so that leaves seeing her die someday, and I can't. Not with Rose. The only thing harder than saying goodbye once is having to do it again." He releases her, eyes shining with unshed tears. "Just quit it. Please."

Donna doesn't say another word. Instead she steps forward, wrapping both arms around the Doctor and holds him tightly, as though her embrace the only thing keeping her Spaceman together.

The touching moment is short-lived as screams ring out piercing the air around them. The familiar whoosh of cybermen footfall followed, the Doctor brightens slightly as he pulls away from Donna. "Let's see if we can help somehow?" He grabs her hand, running in the direction of the chaos. Efforts of the resistance have definitely taken their toll. The fleet they find is tiny and looks as though it will be easily defeated by the locals on scene, even if the Doctor had not shown up to help. They switch to helping with crowd control, keeping the citizens away from both the cybermen and the gunfire. Everything is going well, too well, which is why the Doctor never notices a pair of cybermen moving into position to grab Donna until it's too late.

"Associate of the Doctor identified," declares one.

"Difficult conversion expected," reports the other.

"Proceed to asylum" they agree in unison.

And even as the Doctor turns and runs at a full sprint, leaping toward Donna, they disappear.

* * *

As the Doctor searches furiously for where the transmat is housed and how to activate it, meanwhile Donna is just waking up, struggling to remember everything the Doctor had rushed to teach her about cybermen. She pats down the length of herself and finds much to her relief that she is still flesh and not a metal shell, she is also apparently on a bed. She sits up and looks around, the room reminded her a bit of a hospital. Not a proper St. Mary's or Hammersmith's kind of hospital, but the makeshift kind from the war films Gramps loved so much: dingy, crowded and with a damp air of desperation. It isn't until the fog in her head clears a little more that she notices one other thing, everyone around her is moaning.

Scooting carefully and as quietly as she could off her own bed, Donna draws back the curtain nearest to hers. The sight that greets her is horrific. A woman half cyber, half living flesh, younger than Donna, the redhead guesses from the bits of face she can make out. She looks up at Donna with her one remaining eye, her expression unreadable. Donna backs away, resisting the urge to cry out or be sick, both of which seem reasonable under the circumstances. She checks the remainder of the beds, keeping a count in her head of how many were full for when the Doctor comes to get her. Many of the others are like the first, and some beds are mercifully empty. A pair are full cybermen, begging for help the moment they see Donna, pouring out their names and lives in a cacophony of grief so strong, Donna has resorted to physically plugging her ears so she could hear herself think. Would the Doctor know where this place was and come get her? Was it better to break out of the room and try her chances running? She doesn't have long to decide as a cyberman enters through the door. Snatching up a metal tray, she turns, prepared to go down fighting if it comes to it.

"Are you hungry?" asks the cyberman.

Donna bops it in the chestplate with the tray; it does nothing. "You won't upgrade me without a fight, you rust bucket," she snaps.

"The tray is for food. Flesh humans require food. Are you hungry?" repeats the cyberman. Then, after a pause. "You are not to be upgraded."

Donna continues to swing away as it speaks. "I'm not?" She asks finally lowering the tray.

"No. You are here to help them. Help them."

* * *

"So let me get this straight. You've stopped with the whole upgrade or delete bit?" The Doctor asks again sceptical.

"Correction. Deletion was determined to be unkind," confirms the cyberman he'd found, or been captured by while trying to work on the transmat and not paying good attention to his surroundings. Matter of viewpoint really.

"Since when do the cyberman care about kindness?" scoffs the Doctor, who had come to wholly disregard other Time Lords fondness for the cybernetic race. They are, in his estimation, a horrid species.

"Being unkind creates suffering. We seek to end suffering. The suffering will end when all become like us."

"But upgrading is suffering! Don't you see? That's what I've been trying to tell you for lifetimes now." He bites his lower lip and slumps in his chair. "Even if you don't believe me. Even if your way of life is better. Let's just say that I'm wrong. What about the pain of conversion and all those people who don't survive?"

"The asylum was created for this purpose. We will upgrade the upgrade. There will be less suffering."

The Doctor knows the legends. That one day the cybermen perfected the upgrade process, stabilised their own population, and forged the most peaceable society possible. Perhaps that is why when one of his oldest foes asks if he can help, he agrees quickly with a nod. Perhaps this could be where it starts, and somehow he could get their information to the cybermen in his universe. Remove one of the intergalactic threats upon Earth, a planet he loves so dearly. "I'll help. If you take me to Donna."

The cyberman leads the way. "It is agreed."

* * *

Donna watches as the cyberman in front of her fed those who were still human enough to require food and changes the medication drips of those in pain. She listens as it briefs her, the way the other had to the Doctor, about what happens to those who reject the upgrade or needed more parts. That now they end up here and were made as comfortable as they could be. She wouldn't have believed any of it except that the room full of patients all did seem more comfortable after cyberman had tended to them. Part way in she realises she could probably leave without fear of endangering her own life and yet she pitches in, not wanting to leave these poor people. The Doctor has just as good a chance of finding her here as anywhere she reasons and he would know what to do for them.

He doesn't. Even as he is reunited with Donna and she looks at him with her big mascara coated blue eyes so full of hope and asks how they could save the day, he doesn't have the answer. "Donna, how many people are in this room not us including us?" he asks instead.

"Nine. These two okay cybermen. And these five with bits of human, and the other two over there?" Donna reports slightly hesitant of his tone, but glad the information is useful.

"And who's been helped?"

Donna's smile dims. "Doctor what's with the quiz? It's time to make with the day saving."

"Just answer me," he demands, his tone and expression growing more stern, or is it grim?

"Just these five..." she says beginning to get the picture.

The Doctor sets his gaze on at the two fully functional cybermen as he speaks, pulling back the curtain on the two remaining 'patients'. "They can deal with the physical symptoms, Donna. They understand biology enough to fashion more parts and to keep the remaining flesh as comfortable as it can be while they wait. But helping them through this...is impossible. If they understood the suffering, if they empathised enough to want to work them through it, they wouldn't be real cybermen."

Donna nods and approaches them. "But we aren't," she points out. "We should be able to help."

"How?" he asks, genuinely hoping humans might surprise him again and give him the answer. "How would you persuade someone to let go of their humanity, their individuality and become one of them? Tell me because I haven't got a clue."

"I don't know," she admits finally, defeated.

"Neither do I, Donna. Neither do I."

Ultimately, with no other solution available, the Doctor looks to the cyberman. "Incinerate them. Remove what parts you can to end the suffering for the others and delete," he orders, hating himself for it. "That's how you deal with them. And if you want my advice. If you really care about being kind and ending suffering," he adds, voice rising. "Then upgrade the willing. They're out there. You'll be smaller in number, but happier and you won't have to hurt anyone."

"Understood," the cybermen agrees.

The Doctor doesn't stick around to see the brutal operation that follows, the newly minted cybermen that result. He moves to the bedsides of the two people who would soon die because he was not clever enough to save them, listening intently to their lives.

Sebastian, 19. Worried about his little brother. Alice, 42. A former single mum of three.

"I'll remember you," he promises. "I'm so sorry, but it will be over soon," was the best he could offer. Then solemnly, heartsbroken, he tugs Donna away.

Then, he takes Donna shopping and they spend the evening in a posh hotel, and they wait by the TARDIS until they leave in the morning because he can't bear to stay a minute longer. The greatest tragedy is that he never learns his advice worked.

* * *

The Doctor stares brooding at the TARDIS console gleaming surface, absentmindly running his fingers over a row of buttons. "So holiday attempt number two, where to this time?"

"I want a spa," Donna says dramatically.

"I know a spa. Greatest spa in the universe." He grins. "Near Midnight."

"It's only open at midnight? Or it's only great at midnight?" Donna looks dubious. "You're putting me on."

"No the planet. Near an exotonic star. You'll love it. And I'll...oh I'll find something to do." He started up the TARDIS.


End file.
